Clint Eastwood Directs His First Musical, a Little Story About “New Joisey”

Christopher Walken and Clint Eastwood, possibly plotting the next great musical-to-movie masterpiece, at last night's screening of Jersey Boys., by Mireya Acierto/Getty Images.

Clint Eastwood had never seen the musical Jersey Boys, which tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, before he signed on to direct the film version. “Somebody asked me if I’d be interested in doing it, I said, ‘Well, let me look at it,’” Eastwood said at a screening of his new film, in Manhattan, on Monday. “So I went to three different plays, and I ended up here, on Broadway, seeing it. For the most part we tried to keep all the original players,” he said. The studio hinted that they would not object to packing the film with big-name movie stars, but he preferred to cast the stage veterans.

“They’re terrific actors, some of the best I’ve ever worked with,” Eastwood said. “And it was a great pleasure for me to tell this story about ‘New Joisey.’”

Eastwood filmed the music scenes live. “Because they all could sing very well, and they had done a lot of performances as singers, I just had them sing,” he told VF Daily at a party at the Plaza Hotel, hosted by bespoke menswear brand Angelo Galasso.“I had a band offstage, musicians playing for them, and they’d just go ahead and sing to it,” he explained.

However, one actor, __Vincent Piazza,__who plays Tommy DeVito, had had no singing or dancing experience whatsoever. So how did he get cast? “I’m still trying to get to the bottom of that,” Piazza quipped. “I still don’t know. But anyway, I’m thankful. I made a tape, and sang a few bars of ‘Walk Like a Man,’ and really feel blessed something happened.”

Meanwhile, the evening served as something of a Tony Awards reunion, with many current and past nominees turning out for the screening. Alan Cumming,Rocky’s Andy Karl, Tommy Tune, Reeve Carney, Andrew Rannells, Lena Hall, and__Bebe Neuwirth__ came for a look at the film.

Jefferson Mays and his wife, Susan Lyons, attended the party rounds after his show, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, which took the Tony for best musical. We asked if they made all of the Tonys after-parties Sunday night. They told us that they missed Broadway publicity company O&M’s tea at the Carlyle, which began a full hour later than scheduled. “We missed the tea, we brought our dog though,” Mays said. “They let our dog run around the Carlyle, which was fun.” Their dog, Maud, had been staying at the Hilton with Mays’s agent during the Tonys.

“So Maud was there, watching Animal Planet during the Tony Awards, and then we asked if she’d like to go out, and she did, and so we took her around,” Mays said. “It was fun. It’s great, going out with your dog at night. It’s like Paris!”

They enjoyed celebrating. “That was a good night. And we’re here for sort of hair of the dog,” Mays said, laughing.